It began in a bar, as good things often do, in the basement of Act Tower in Hamamatsu City, Japan.
My girlfriend at the time introduced me over squid and beers to Masamitsu Togawa, a local community leader with
the all important initial connections in the ultra conservative and elderly rural Enshu community. Mr. Togawa's group, Shinji Shumeikai,
had been working with The Rodale Institute on trying to produce a regenerative and environmentally friendly
system of rice production for some time, and they were more than
willing to accept a blue-eyed and able-bodied volunteer. Through Mr. Togawa and Shinji Shumeikai I met Mrs. Ohashii, and it is on her
paddy in Iwata City that I mainly helped. To look at just one paddy however, doesn't do justice to the region. What follows then, is an overview
of some of the various people I met, places I went, and things I learned while muddying up the company car between the summer
of 2000 and the winter of 2001.